Young Architects Competitions: Rwanda Chapel

YAC is a association whose aim is to promote architectural competitions amongst young designers – no matter if graduates or students. First YAC wants to propel research about design, by periodically suggesting tangible issues on Architecture and City planning. By so YAC wants to provoke reflections about physical places for human activities that everyday are becoming more and more unpredictable and dynamic.

Rukomo is a remote village situated in the upland of Rwanda. Rukomo is the inaccessible heart of an inaccessible continent. Here lives a community that has overcome moments of deep and great sorrow. The scars of such history still remind people of the indifference and apathy affecting the “First World”.

Despite having little, here people smile often. These people live far-away from the hectic lifestyle of large areas of the world. These people look for spaces for their interiority and experience an intense return to spirituality. Rwanda Chapel is for each one of them.

Rwanda Chapel is YAC’s competition dedicated to the community of Rukomo. It aims at donating a church to believers and to the local religious community. It will be a place of peace and conciliation where to celebrate or meditate regardless of disagreements and differences. It will be a place where to be united in the longing for eternity.

One of the most exciting themes for generations of architects has always been the sacred space. With the competition Rwanda Chapel the design of such space will offer an additional opportunity. Through contemporary architecture, architects will have the chance to support one of the poorest areas of the planet.

Rwanda Chapel is the outcome of international collaboration. It aims at donating a real monument to Rukomo. It will be a symbol of global solidarity and cooperation. It will also be an architectural masterpiece dedicated to one of the most elusive and recurring mysteries of history: the divine.